voya. helping you to and through retirement. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. the democrats build their abuse of power impeachment case. an ambassador says there is willingness to investigate the bidens.

the democrats halt removing troops from syria who say the president is making american weaker and handing a gift to iran, russia and isis. he is a son of sharecroppers. the baltimore icon died this morning at age 68 after 37 years in public service, the last 23 in the house. >> congratulations. >> i only have a minute. 60 seconds. forced upon me, i did not choose it, but i know i must use it. give account if i abuse it. suffer if i lose it. only a tiny little minute but eternity is in it. so i join you as we move forward to uplift not only the nation,

but the world. >> we'll come back to that sad news a little later in the program, but we begin the hour with the dramatic and damning impeachment testimony from one of the president's people. gordon sondland, american ambassador to the european union, saying he ordered rudy giuliani to get ukraine to investigate joe biden. in his prepared testimony, sondland said, i did not understand until much later that mr. judegiuliani's effort mighto include an effort to prompt the ukranians to investigate mr. biden or his son or in the

president's 2020 reelection campaign. he also sawe have michael bende the "wall street journal." it is important in many ways. it's not a deep stater. this is a political donor to the president that the president appointed to this job. number two, the other state officials who have testified, the career people, have painted sondland as a more willing participant in this. but as they try to clear up that, he says he was reluctant. this is the president's man who said the president personally told me rudy, not the state department, not the government, your personal attorney is the point person, and yes, rudy leaked deliverables to ukraine to help the president's personal agenda. >> we know this is what he's going to say because we've seen the opening testimony. but if they, in these q and a

sessions today, can get even beyond that which even if it's just that is damning. but if they can get to the question of whether or not sondland had a real conversation with the president of the united states about this, about what this actually means and what the president wanted. yes, we know from the opening testimony that he is going to say, well, the president -- he called the president and the president explicitly said, there is no quid pro quo. but that's something that you say when you know you're supposed to say that. beyond that, it's not even the quid pro quo, it's was it his understanding based on conversations with the president that these things were not going to happen unless the ukranians promised to investigate joe biden. >> anyone watching at home, if you had any doubt the house was going to impeach the president, today makes it much more likely it will in the sense -- again, you may disagree with that, even

if you think some of the conduct is wrong, you may think that's over the top. this is one of the president's appointees saying the president personally directed me to run policy through his personal attorney. that's what the democrats are looking for to make their case -- you can disagree with this at home -- to make their case and point. bill taylor saying, wait a minute, what are we doing here? this is crazy. we're holding up military aid in exchange for an investigation into the bidens or the 2016 debunked conspiracy theory about the election. here's what sondland said in his testimony. i called president trump directly. what do you want from ukraine? the president replied, nothing, there is no quid pro quo. the president repeated quid pro quo multiple times. this was a short call and i recall the president was in a very bad mood. there if you're a trump defender, the president said there is no quid pro quo a couple times. that is important. however, what the investigators need to do, there is a four and a half hour gap between

sondlandsondland calling him and the president saying quid pro quo. why was the president in a bad mood? >> his testimony indicates that even though he was told by the president there is no quid pro quo, he clearly witnessed there was some sort of quid pro quo. he is saying essentially the president told him he had to go through rudy giuliani, and he discovered later that giuliani may have been motivated by a political agenda that had to do with wanting these investigations to be open before anything could happen further with ukraine and that he disagreed with that. so in a very careful way, in a way that's very deliberately sort of parsed in the statement but which is going to be harder for him to parse as he's answering questions from the democrats on the committee, he's essentially saying, i knew this was wrong. i knew what the president was asking me to do was not appropriate, but i felt like i had to maintain this relationship, and i later found out that the reasons he was asking me to do these things were not defensible at all.

>> and it's interesting that the president does feel the need to point out there is no quid pro quo here. the question of what you want from ukraine can be seen as a pretty standard question from your ambassador in the region dealing with some of these issues. one piece of the context that's important to remember here is that the president had just had a phone call about ten days earlier with ron johnson who raised these same questions, who is also specifically alarmed about the idea of quid pro quo in ukraine related to the bidens. so trump already knows that this is a concern. >> and johnson raised those questions after a conversation with the same gordon sondland. >> that's exactly right. so that's on johnson's mind, trump is aware this is a conversation taking place, and to go back to your point, this shows it can't be pinned on democrats and solely democrats and never trumpers. this is taylor, one of his top diplomats in the region, sondland, one of his top diplomats in the region who are connecting the dots here on

their own and bringing these concerns right to the president. >> as you jump in, kai, i just want to point how serious this is. the president had a strong group. president trump was skeptical that ukraine was serious about reforms. nothing wrong with that. he directed them to talk to rudy giuliani, his personal attorney, about his concerns. it was apparent to all of us that it was ukraine, not russia, that interfered in the 2016 election, saying that joe biden and hunter biden are crooks. that's the structure of the united states government and the only people the president brought in, the secretary of

state, this state officials, to talk to the president. >> he wanted them to be more lockstep with his personal attorney, that's clear. but i think it's important to note that ambassador sondland, he had a direct relationship with the president. he picked up the phone whenever he wanted and called trump. he took some pretty substantial steps to try to get into trump's inner circle. he wasn't initially a trump guy. he was kind of a republican of the establishment type, so he made some substantial efforts here. and as we were discussing this with folks who are familiar with sondland's work with the state department and the nse over the past few days, they said that he was really viewed as a problem he here. so what's going to be really interesting is not only what he released in this opening statement, but those instances where he was a problem for the people at the nse and for the people at the state department

in potentially enabling these alternative agendas that the president was doing alongside the ukraine policy. >> i think it's really important here to point out that his account is at odds from what we heard from some of the witnesses here. >> he describes himself as quite reluctant. >> he describes himself as someone who didn't agree with this at all, but he thought it was his only option, and was described by fiona hill and others who thought he was a very willing participant to go around the formal channels that should existed in ukraine and put himself in the middle of all this. what's bad news for the president here is he was, at least at this point, an ally of president trump's, and he appears to be making some efforts to rebuild his reputation to save himself, and doing that may entail coughing up some more damaging information on the president. >> what is that damaging information? because you said that what we see today just in the prepared statement is more evidence, maybe the most significant

evidence to date, that the democrats could use for impeachment. but the question is, is going through a private attorney and not the state department, is that impeachable if they can't prove that they really were asking to investigate joe biden. or even investigate what happened in 2016, which is what we're hearing more and more from republicans. it's not the next election, it's the last election. and those answers we don't know yet, and that's why what they get beyond this testimony in this interview they're doing right now is so key. >> if you're gordon sondland, you're testifying not only in an impeachment inquiry, you understand that two employees of rudy giuliani is sitting in state prison right now. the justice department says they're crooks. rudy giuliani paid them $500,000. up next, president trump rebuked over syria by his own party on the house floor as the senate majority leader then says

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vice president mike pence and the secretary of state mike pompeo tasked overseas today with a critical diplomatic mission. meeting with president erdogan trying to make a cease-fire along the turkey border where they have been taking over

positions. erdogan says he will never call a cease-fire. b back home the president finding himself even more isolated for his decision to pull back the troops and pave the way for that turkish invasion. two-thirds of republicans joining democrats on the house floor in condemning his actions in syria. senator mitch mcconnell today praising what the house did and calling for something even more harsh on the senate floor. >> i was encouraged to see yesterday's display of bipartisan concern in the house of representatives for sustaining america's global leadership and specifically over the damaging impact of hastily withdrawing that leadership from syria. my preference would be for something even stronger than the resolution the house passed yesterday. >> hasa mahala joining our

conversation. that's mitch mcconnell saying a resolution in the house isn't tough enough. wow? >> we've actually seen republicans willing to disagree with the president. this is symbolic, largely. at this point i don't think anybody can renege and go back in time and prevent trump from pulling back that order in syria. there are some republicans willing to criticize the president, and there have been very few situations we've seen that at all. >> there is always a shotgun wedding sometimes about the president, especially among senate republicans. they don't like what he tweets, they don't like how he's rejecting this impeachment inquiry, even though they don't

necessarily believe impeachment is the answer. plus their built-up frustration. >> foreign policy is an area where senators in particular, but also members of congress at large feel like they have some expertise and a leg to stand on that people can agree is a disaster foreign policywise. everyone can see what's happening in this region and how bad the situation is for the kurds who have been our allies. so i think there is genuine, you know, opposition and a real appetite to express that and make that public. but i also think that republicans, particularly some of the republicans who are more uncomfortable with the president's conduct who are the ones who are the most concerned about this ukraine thing, although they don't want to come out and say we want to impeach him or they even want there to be an impeachment inquiry, they are looking for ways for the public that when he does something beyond the pale, i am willing to criticize him. >> the president is literally

alone on this. here's lindsey graham often a defender of the president. not here. >> he's not listening to his commanders, he's not listening to his advisers, he's not -- he's making the biggest mistake of his presidency by assuming the kurds are better off today than they were yesterday. >> a more moderate republican in the house but still a republican in the house, adam kissinger. wow, the decision by donald trump didn't leave time to evacuate the right way. is this the america you grew up believing in? then on the editorial board today, the kurds 354, trump 60. yet he has also imposed sanctions on turkish officials

involved in the invasion and has urged turkish president efrd began. mr. erdogan has ignored mr. trump's pleas. >> he's 95% there, but maybe he will go back a little bit given the fact he is so aggravated and the two of them have words on this. that adam kissinger tweet is astonishing. this is not just a republican, but a veteran. he might even still be active duty. and he is tweeting that his fellow republican, the president of the united states, hurt american forces by making an impulsive decision. if you just think about that, that is unbelievable. >> it takes a lot to get a person that wears the uniform to go after the commander in choie. >> exactly. never mind that he's in politics. that tweet to me said so much. >> in the context of president trump's normal reaction to these types of things, it doesn't seem

to have affected him that much. i know we had the meeting with pelosi and schumer and trump yesterday, which we can talk about, but he's been pretty measured responding to all of this for a couple weeks now. i was in the roosevelt room when some of the first criticisms came out and a reporter read him some of the sharpest ones, and trump kind of shrugged his shoulders and said, these are people with different opinions. i have my opinions, they have their opinions, and we need to move on in syria. even the other day at his news conference, he described this as purely as a campaign promise, aside from any morality, any judgment here, any idealogy, really. his quote was, good or bad, this is what i promised i was going to do. >> we'll see if that holds. we'll see if that holds especially after -- we'll get to this later in the program. nancy pelosi stands up with the republicans in the room and tries to put the president in his place. we'll see if that relative comment holds up.

we pause and reflect on elijah cummings. >> when we're dancing with the angels, the question will be asked, in 2019, what did we do to make sure we kept our democracy intact? did we stand on the sidelines and say nothing? everyone uses their phone differently. that's why xfinity mobile lets you design your own data. you can share 1, 3, or 10 gigs of data between lines, mix in lines of unlimited, and switch it up at any time. all with millions of secure wifi hotspots and the best lte everywhere else. it's a different kind of wireless network, designed to save you money. switch and save up to $400 a year on your wireless bill. plus, get $250 back when you buy an eligible phone.

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why do you take responsibility for lehman's mistakes? why do you continue to say, quote, we are great and the market doesn't understand? >> so what do you say to the person who can't find a job, just go and die? just get lost? no empathy? >> i am a member of the accomplished united states of america. i am tired of this. you cannot just have a one-sided investigation. there is absolutely something wrong with that and it is absolutely unamerican. >> and i truly believe, i truly believe -- are you listening? >> yes. >> thank you. i truly believe you could become a force of tremendous good. >> ladies and gentlemen, we are in search of the truth. >> today a giant loss to the congress and to the nation.

elijah cummings passed away overnight after a battle for months and months with longstanding health issues. he was 6 years old. cummings devoted 60 years of his life to public service, including 23 in the white house. he also played a very important role in the ongoing investigations, including the impeachment inquiry into president trump. gentleman is one word. just a gentle man. two words. whenever you encountered him. even the republicans are saying this today. that's what makes this so remarkable, that congress has lost a civil rights hero, a very important figure. but rare in this town do you have everybody just pause, even the republicans, and say, just a gentle soul. >> because even the republicans were some of his best friends. mark meadows, who is probably among the most conservative of lawmakers, the closest of lawmakers to president trump, said to me earlier this morning, i'm heartbroken and i don't have

any other words for this loss. the two of them, by their own account, were best friends. and elijah cummings could not be more different politically from him, and it's actually -- it's unfortunate that we have to have these moments to remember, even though things are so bad, and you don't have the relationships even close to what they used to be across party lines even a decade ago. but they do still exist, despite what you see in public. these are human beings and today we lost a big one. >> this is an emotional twitter stream from trey gowdy. former republican congressman, elijah cummings, was about to join the president's legal defense team, so about to become a partisan warrior on the part of the president. we nev he never had a cross word outside the committee room. the story of elijah's life would benefit everyone despite

political idealation. he said he would never become a lawyer, to settle for a job with his hands and not his mind. >> so striking in particular, because as you said, former congressman gowdy was a men of that benghazi committee which was so contentious. elijah cummings could get really fiery and fired up when he felt strongly about something, when he felt republicans were in the wrong or his own party was in the wrong. that was clearly a heartfelt thing. when i was a young reporter working for the baltimore sun, elijah cummings was the first member of congress i met. i was struck by how he felt deeply about being a just and fair member of congress on big, national issues, but he was also passionate about his district. he was passionate about baltimore. you recall when president trump

insulted baltimore earlier this year, he said, i have a constitutional duty to look into impeachment and the like, but i have a moral duty to my constituents. you always felt like he felt both of those things really strongly and worked really hard on them. >> he gets forgotten sometimes because nancy pelosi is a daughter of baltimore, maryland. she had this to say this morning about her friend. >> revered and respected colleague, congressman mr. chairman elijah cummings of maryland, my brother in baltimore. in the congress elijah was considered a north star. he was a leader of towering character and integrity. he always strove to reach across the aisle and treat all of our colleagues with respect and even had dialogue with the president for a while on this subject. so it would be very appropriate that hr-3 would now be the elijah cummings. >> hr-3 is the house democratic plan to lower the cost of

prescription drugs which was a constant passion for the chairman, because he went home to a district that had a lot of people without much money for whom he would be told all the time, i can't make this choice, feeding my children, paying for my prescriptions. >> so many different parts of elijah cummings' legacy here that are coming out. as dana said, it's a good reminder that these kinds of relationships, his ability to build relationships across both sides of the aisle still exist today. you just hope that is not something that was also lost today with his passing, and you wonder who in this congress in this day and age is going to pick up that piece of his legacy. >> you don't see much of that. the acting chair of the committee is karen maloney, who will take over. the committee is still involved in very important pieces to the president. we'll watch it unfold. we'll be right back. ♪

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picture that is worth way more than a thousand words. he tweeted it, you see it right here, claiming it showed a nancy pelosi meltdown. she quickly made it her twitter page banner, believing what it really shows is america's most powerful woman putting the president in his place. the issue of the moment was the president's decision to withdraw u.s. troops in northern syria, and the speaker was making clear the overwhelming bipartisan opposition. she offered her take on that moment just last hour. >> can you tell us a little bit about that picture and what was being said at that time? >> i think i was excusing myself from the room. but at that moment i was probably saying, all roads lead to putin. i think it would be interesting, you tell me, if we could have a recording of what goes on in those offices. because they come out and say, oh, this happened and that happened, and you're like, we must have been at two different meetings. >> i want to bring back the picture from time to time in the

conversation, but this is one of the most important relationships in washington. we have this moment of high drama and theater and interesting personality, but it is also incredibly telling as the congress rebukes the president on his syria policy in a bipartisan way. as the democrats at the moment on a purely partisan basis proceed with impeachment. the intensity of these two and the degree to which she gets under his skin is remarkable. >> she knows exactly how to do it. the fact she brought up this resounding vote where all these republicans had essentially condemned him, and then she says to him, all roads lead to putin with you, he's insulting her in grade school ways, which we're not even sure whether he called her -- she said a third grade politician, the white house is saying a third rate politician, but the basic idea is he's hurling insults at the speaker of the house. it's interesting that he chose to put out the picture because clearly she was unhinged and she is crazy nancy as he sometimes calls her, nervous nancy, and

what she said that it showed was that he was shaken up by that vote. he's shaken up by the situation, and she came back to the capitol and said she had concerns for his health. >> both of them played to the politics for this, and in some sense it helps each of them. he's playing to his base, she's playing to hers. it's striking to look at the power in american politics in that that's all white men around that table except for the speaker of the house of representatives standing up. >> that is why she has said to me, and i'm sure others, she's 79. that's why she's still in this job. that's why she wanted to be speaker again. she goes to those meetings, she is in those meetings all the time. she looks around and knows she's the only woman there. that's part of the dynamic. the other thing we were talking about before the break, if i can ask to put the picture back up one more time, is the faces of those men, especially those in uniform. look at them. they are looking for the trap door. they just want to just be gone

from that room, and they look embarrassed. they look embarrassed at that r. and they might agree on the kind of insult that the president hurled at her, but he hurled an insult at her to the point where she felt like she had to get up and leave the room. she is two heartbeats away from the presidency. she is an incredible constitutional player, and the basic respect that she was showing, she gave it back to him, and the way it was perceived by the president's own men. >> we know men who disagree with the president. trump's own team disagrees on the issue at hand like everybody in that room does. the picture shows just how trump is unable to figure out how to handle pelosi. he's able to bend almost everyone else in washington and

positions of power to his whim except pelosi. hardly even tries, frankly. and for the white house, it's incredibly frustrating, because what they see as a briefing on t the issue, pelosi gets up, attacks him by using his own campaign slogans in the meeting, and she's sort of celebrated as a hero afterward by her and her supporters. the same thing happened in the immigration room with nielsen and that meltdown. she started questioning nielsen's facts in that meeting, and they looked at that as interrupting the purpose of the meeting and she comes out with a lot of headlines and a lot of good clips. >> to me what this photo incident is kind of indicative of is the fact, and we see this time and again, where president trump interprets a perception

very different than others. i would say by and large many folks interpreted that very differently than he did. we see this with nancy pelosi putting it as her own twitter profile page, but clearly he interpreted that photo very different differently. >> and mick mulvaney, the white house chief of staff, taking questions at the white house right now. >> how will the president have the g-7 meeting at his own resort, and how will he -- >> you're not making any profit, i think we've already established that. >> i know a huge opportunity. >> i've heard that before. i guess i've been the chief now for about nine or ten months and i always hear whenever we go to mar-a-lago, it's a huge branding opportunity. we play golf at trump bedminster, he goes to play golf at trump sterling. everybody asks the question about a huge marketing opportunity. i would like you to consider the possibility that donald trump's

brand is probably strong enough as it is and he doesn't need any more help on that. it's the most recognizable name in the english language and probably around the world right now. that has nothing to do with it. i was skeptical. i was. i was aware of the sort of political criticism we would come under for doing it at doral which is why i was so surprised when the advance team came back and said this is the perfect physical location to do this. i get the criticisms, so does he. he'll be criticized regardless of what he chose to do. so no, there is no issue here on him profiting from this in any way, shape and form. what's the difference between this and what we're talking about, the bidens? first of all, there is no profit here. clearly there is profit with the bide bidens, and if you look at the difference between the trump family and the biden family, trump made their money before they went into politics. that's a big difference. >> do you have any idea of cost estimate, what you're looking at, and will the g-7 remain in

washington? >> it was millions of dollars cheaper doing it at doral than another facility, and that was roughly a 50% savings. as for a g-7 or g-8, that's been a topic whether he wants russia to join the g-7, and i think he's been very straightguarforw we go to the g-7 and what dominates so much of the discussion? russia. russian ministry, the russian military policy, the russian economy. it dominates a lot of the discussion. wouldn't it be better to have them inside as part of those discussions? i think that decision will be made later and we continue to review it. yes, ma'am. >> thank you very much. g-7 has been happening for decades, so how can you make the argument this is the best place to hold it?

surely there were other places that could be held, and you can't make the argument the president is not going to profit because we can't know how much he might profit in the future, right? >> to your first the profit. again, he's not making any money off of this just like he's not making any money from working here. if you think it's going to help his brand, that's great, but i would suggest he doesn't need much help promoting his brand. put the profit one aside and deal with the perfect place. the last one was camp david. was that a perfect place? i remember the folks who attended hated it. it was way too small. his media didn't like it because you had to drive an hour on a bus to get there either way. >> i get your point, but there have been other g-7s i've attended. how can we make the argument that this is the only place the g-7 could happen? >> it's not the only place, it's

the best place. there are plenty of places to hold a large event, no doubt about it. we wanted it at a specific time, we wanted it in early june, so that limits it a little bit. and there are difficulties going various places. some places don't have the transportation that you need. there was one place, i don't remember where it was, we had to figure out if we would have to have oxygen tanks for the participants because of the altitude. there are limb taitations at ot places. we thought of the 12 places we looked at that this was, by far and away, the best choice. >> clearly this is a business of optics. how is the president going to stand on the debate stage, if, in fact, vice president joe biden wins the nomination, and try to make an argument he profited off his vice presidency? >> he's going to do that extraordinarily well. >> you talked about how this is the best place or one of the best places to have this. >> yeah. >> is this going to be self-contained just at doral, or are there other hotel rooms

you'll think you have to get. >> i understand one of the advantages, the advance team came back from doral and said it could be is sequestered. we do expect the entire thing to be on that campus. >> are there additional hotels involved in that? >> again, i'm not sure about -- when we talk about the delegations -- for example, when we went to b. ritz, i think we were at three different hotels around that city. that would not be the case here. the british will stay on campus. you folks will be there.

whether or not there are other folks using up hotel rooms, i can't answer to that. >> let's talk about authorities. what authorities have been hired to help us? >> the advance team will work with us but i'm not familiar with those. >> the video shown of that resort, the one that showed president trump killing the news media. >> but we put out a statement. you had a chance to ask that question yesterday, and you asked him something else, which is fine. your question is why hasn't he answered. i think we condemned that. >> he's the president. >> we didn't. >> that doesn't sound like a very strong condemnation chlts.

>> lz. yop if he's seen it or not, i hav have. lily. >> you're trying to put it in the place you think is the best and maybe save some taxpayers my money, which are anfi improprie. >> he says, i'm willing to take that. the same way he took bedminster

and mar-a-lago. we're going to have it there and there are folks that will never get over the fact it's a trump property. we get that, but we're still going to go there. >> besides what your advance team did to look for the perfect place, what role did the president play in selecting doral, including getting it on the initial list of 10 or 12 places in the first place? >> that's a fair question. we were back in the dining room going over with our advance team. we had the list. he said, what about doral? >> the president brought it up? >> we're all familiar with it, so it's not like he said, this is what doral said, how about it? >> i want to ask you as it relates to this decision you've made. as the host country, couldn't the president simply, as the host country, invite president putin to represent russia? >> i think we can. as i understand how the g-7 works, there will be other

leaders there, anyway. for example, i met with scott morrison, the prime minister of australia, at the g7, even though they're not there. i assume he came from the invite of president macrum. >> my question was, can he physically invite him to the table. would he consider doing that? >> the conversation we had about whether or not we would turn it from the g-7 to the g-8. what about the country itself? is there any value of sending a message to the world, especially with all that's happened, foreign interference in our k country, that this country is not open to self-dealings with other countries. is that important when you're

inviting the world to come here. >> any other g-7 questions. >> the. >> i don't know, why do they have it at camp david? for those of you who were there, i'm a little familiar. i think it was a g-8 back then, 2004, something like that, and they said it was a complete disaster. how did that decision get snad. >> ump talking about this video where the president was seen shooting people in the media. >> the white house put out a

statement about tm the g-7. is there any statement about the g-7 being held on a property owned by the president or a president? and my second question is, as you're looking at the content of what you want to do next year, it's probably going to be hot in florida in june. will climate change be one of the issues you'll discuss? >> i don't know if another president has owned a property that was even considered for a g-7, so no, i don't know the answer to that question. climate change will not be on the agenda. yes, sir. >> thank you. president trump has called for the exposure of the whistleblower on ukraine. >> are we done with the g-7? >> just to show the american people this is aboveboard.

are you going to sharely. >> by the way, you're going to get this answer a lot. i don't talk about how this place runs on the inside. if you want to see our paper on how we did this, the answer is absolutely not. >> there almost will certainly be a house jrue dinner yimp? will the white house participate in that? >> i had not thought of that, that this would prompt a house judiciary investigation. on one hand, i think they don't have time to do it because they're busy with impeachment, right? then i thought, this is entirely consistent with how they spent their eight months in office.

i guess it's been a year. yeah, they would rather do that than talk about tax policy thn talk about drug policy, then talk about opioids and health care it it. statement on the g-7. you said five finalists and mar-a-lago was one of the finalists? >> it started with 12 on sort of a list with a team that visited sort of -- a first team visited ten of those and our team visited four, one in mar-a-lago and out. >> you said in the united states it came down to four finalists

and two of them were trump properties? >> i'm sorry, doral. mar-a-lago is not close to being sufficient for the g-7. if i said mar-a-lago, about where we visit was doral. my apologies. >> with respect to ukraine, can you recall -- and i'm trying to get an answer to this -- was the president serious when he said he also would like to see china investigate the bidens? you were directly involved in the decision to withhold funding from ukraine. can you explain to us now definitively why it was withheld? >> it came as no surprise to anybody. i haven't done this since i was chief of staff. it was for the budget briefings,

right? something you all asked me was, what are you doing with the foreign aid? >> he doesn't like spending money overseas, especially when it's poorly spent. and that is exactly what drove this decision. i've been in the office with him talking a couple times and he says, mick, everybody knows this is a corrupt place. this is what happened in puerto rico when we got heat because we didn't want to give aid to puerto rico because we thought they were corrupt. by the way, it turned out he was right. i don't want to send money to a corrupt place, so they can have money to line their pockets. so we actually looked at that during that time -- when we cut the money off before the money actually flowed because the money flowed by the end of the fiscal year, we actually did an analysis of what other countries

were doing in terms of supporting ukraine. what i found out was that zero or near zero dollars for ukraine in lethal aid. as vocal as the europeans are about supporting ukraine, they are really, really stingy when it comes to lethal aid. i know this is a long answer to your question but i'm still going. those were the driving factors. did he also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the dnc server? absolutely. no question about that. that's it, and that's why we held up the money. >> so the demand for an investigation into the democrats was part of the reason that he was ordered to withhold funding to ukraine? >> the look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation. and that is